The Illinois Motor Vehicle Data Linkage (MVDL) Project
Funded by a grant from the Illinois Department of Public Health in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Transportation, the overall goal of this project is to link state health and transportation data to support local, regional, and statewide highway safety decision-making to affect decreases in deaths, non-fatal injuries, and health care costs resulting from motor vehicle crashes, which will help make Illinois roads safer. The primary function of the data analyst will be to collect, clean, merge together, and update the primary database that forms the basis of this project. The data analyst will work with the other members of the UIS research team, IDPH, and IDOT to identify key research questions of interest to policymakers that the data can help to answer.
Research Studies
Risky Roadway Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020
The correlation between injury, death, vehicle speed, and traffic volume during the 2020
COVID-19 pandemic has received some much needed attention by researchers (Lee et al., 2020;
Liao and Lowry, 2021; Stiles et al., 2021). Yet much remains to be learned regarding the rise in
traffic violence and death on our roadways during the COVID-19 pandemic. This exploratory
paper aims to build on that research and those cited below by investigating the prevalence of
roadway behavior more broadly classified as risky. We use five years of linked crash and
hospital data provided by the Illinois Departments of Transportation and Public Health from
2016 through 2020. Through the presentation of descriptive statistics we compare occurrences of
risky behavior in the four preceding years to occurrences in 2020. Our purpose is to better
understand the circumstances and contributing factors of linked crashes so they may be mitigated
through action resulting in the prevention of injury and death.
Pediatric restraint use and injury across race, ethnicity, and class in Illinois
A leading cause of child deaths in America are motor vehicle crashes. For children 12 years and younger the proper use of a child restraint could make the difference between moderate and severe injury, and even death. Through uncommon access to both crash and hospital records, this manuscript investigates the circumstantial and socioeconomic characteristics associated with a child being properly restrained at the time of a motor vehicle crash. Zip code level data of the childhood crash victims are also aggregated and studied to learn of the community factors related to restraint use. Results suggest that 10.5% of children during the study period were either not restrained at all or improperly restrained at the time of the crash. Properly restrained children were between 10 and 20 times less likely to die compared to unrestrained or improperly restrained children. Black children were some nine percentage points, and Hispanic children were almost six percentage points, less likely to be properly restrained compared to White children. Children of all races covered by Medicaid were also nearly seven percentage points less likely to be properly restrained compared to others. Unrestrained children suffered worse injuries that resulted in higher hospital charges and Medicaid bills compared to restrained children. Children residing in zip codes with relatively high rates of poverty and carlessness are especially overrepresented as not being properly restrained. A binary logistic model estimates that children aged four through eight are also significantly less likely to be properly restrained. Recommendations are made for targeted interventions and for regulatory changes to ensure greater pediatric restraint compliance.